Comrade Bearshoots a whale. Does the Kremlin count as his lair or should he really have a base under a volcano or something?

Putin held his balance in a rubber boat that was being tossed around in choppy waters off the Kamchatka Peninsula, and eventually hit the whale with a special arrow designed to collect skin samples.

Courtesy ofBalko, more homeland security nonsense. Seven people dressed up as zombies and decided to go to the local mall to protest consumerism. Someone saw their PA system and, freaking out, called the cops who arrested them for:

…disorderly conduct and said the zombies’ homemade public address rig looked like a weapon of mass destruction.

The zombies sued and the city council decided to settle for $165,000. Good for them.

YT sent me this article about the unveiling of the Iranian drone bomber thingy. Leave it to the Iranians to screw up on the messaging…

“The jet, as well as being an ambassador of death for the enemies of humanity, has a main message of peace and friendship,” said Ahmadinejad at the inauguration ceremony, which fell on the country’s national day for its defense industries.

WTF does that mean?! I guess he had an extra dose of crazy with his breakfast.

Is it me or would Putin, Assange and Ahmadinejad make a great league of super villains? It wouldn’t be a stretch to give them superpowers…Putin could be like Colossus, Assange could be the Leader. I’m not sure about Ahmadinejad…someone crazy and out of touch with reality…Green Goblin, maybe?

One of the rumors swirling around was that the ship was carrying S300 surface to air missiles to Iran. The idea was rejected by most (including myself…but what the hell do I know). But, once the ship was recovered the story died and discussions of its possible cargo faded to the realm of water cooler speculation (What kind of water cooler do you hang around at? eds.).

But then…out of the blue, Iran announced it had four S300s. But wait, it gets more interesting…

The Fars news agency said Wednesday that Iran has obtained two missiles from Belarus and two others from another unspecified source. [italics added]

A spokesman for Belarus’ state military trade committee denied that any missiles had been transferred.

There are just so many ways this could play out, it’s dizzying. Does Iran want Israel and the U.S. to think they have the S300 system (to deter an attack) and therefore might be willing to claim they have them, even if they don’t? Would the U.S. be willing to downplay or deny the existence of Iranian S300sin order to avoid escalating tensions? Would the Russians (or anyone else) want to thumb their noses at U.S. objections and sell a few of these systems to Iran?

So, is it possible that the Arctic Sea did have some S300s on board and that they managed to get them to Iran? If so, could it be that the two IL-76s that the Russians sent purportedly to bring the two dozen sailors was really a deception operation to make everyone think that they had taken those S300s off ship and were sending them back to Russia when, in fact, they had already been delivered?

IBM has created a web-based version of the CIA factbook. There’s enough variables to filter, views to alter and colors to see that even the most jaded of you will start to drool. (h/t sources and methods)

Sitherine is coming out with a new game that looks fun. Battlefield Academy is based on a free BBC game of the same name. You can still play the BBC versions with allow you to fight the Battle of Trafalgar or the original games which takes you through Rome, the Middle Ages, Napoleon’s time and WWII.

FBI epic fail. Wikimedia epic win! Hopefully the FBI realizes they are in a hole and will stop digging.

Lung Hu has twogreat posts worthy of your attention both revolving around that Iranian scientist defector/abductee/whatever Sharram Amiri. If you like your international relations with a lot of alternate hypothesis you probably haven’t heard before, check it out.

Iran really needs a better quality of writers if they want to stay competitive in the propaganda game. Even though I didn’t agree with the ‘AXIS OF EVIL’, I do have to admit it had a nice ring to it. But really, the ‘triangle of wickedness‘? How lame is that?

But wait, it’s even lamer because it’s not even a real triangle. The Iranian regime identifies the members of the triangle as: “the Zionist regime, America and their hired agents”

Now, you’ll notice there’s a bit of double counting going on there. Agents, by definition, are acting on behalf of their paymasters and so should be considered representatives of them. The pathetic attempt to count them twice is ridiculous and should be rejected out of hand.

Ah, good.

A State Department spokesman in Washington dismissed the accusation of United States involvement as “absurd.”

I would have preferred if the State department statement included a definition of the term triangle but that might have been seen as too provocative.

I was out of contact with the outside world for almost all of the past 4 days with the exception of getting a newspaper on Friday morning. I was actually quite thankful after seeing the story about the attempted plane bombing, since I just knew that all of the coverage Christmas Day would be endless idle speculation with virtually no facts. I figured most of that would have burned out be the time we got back this afternoon and so turned on the news to see what had gone on in the world while I was away.

In half an hour of watching CNN (MSNBC had it’s usual Sunday mass-murderer porn on) I heard about the flooding of Reagan National Airport, increased security at L.A., an interview with the Dutch guy who apprehended the terrorist suspect (twice). By the way, who would have thought a European would save the day? I thought they were all too busy eating brie and surrendering to Muslim fanatics to actually take a stand. I guess Fox News and the Right are wrong again.

But not once did I hear that there was even a peep on news out of Iran. I only knew there was something up because there were about a billion posts from the Daily Dish in my rss reader.

Why am I always amazed at the crappy world coverage we get here in the states?

Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike. No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.

After the first generation of revolutionaries age and become comfortable in their positions, they become the very thing they rebelled against.